On our business page yesterday, we featured a story about Victoria Knight, a young, recent Southwestern Michigan College graduate who recently started her own construction company, Hard Hats and Heels LLC.

We would like to extend a congratulations to Knight and all the other young, driven people like her in our communities. We are glad to see young people like Knight working and starting businesses in our communities.

There tends to a stereotype that follows around young people: they are lazy, and they don’t know how to work hard. While this may indeed be true of some young people — in the same way that it may be true about any person of any age — at the newspaper, we talk to young people every single week that prove that stereotype false.

We have interviewed students who have such an impressive record of volunteerism that they have been recognized in our nation’s capital. We have written stories about young people that have had to work to relearn how to walk or speak after terrible accidents. We have printed news of college students who are inventing life-changing technologies, and of course, we have written story after story about young entrepreneurs such as Knight.

In our opinion, the kids (of southwest Michigan) are alright. They work hard and are driven to make our communities better places to live. If young people are our future, we are in good hands here in Niles and Dowagiac.

We would encourage young people like Knight to keep up the hard work and to continue to make our communities great for years to come.

Opinions expressed are those of general manager Ambrosia Neldon, managing editor Sarah Culton and sports editor Scott Novak.